Three Items

I. On the Road Again

I took advantage of Stark County's early voting last Friday (at the court house here in Dickinson) because I knew that I would be out of town all day yesterday (Election Day) and today for work: I accompanied 29 education majors on a field experience to New Town, ND where they served as student aides in the public schools. We left on a charter bus at 5:30 A.M. yesterday and spent all day in the elementary, middle, and high schools. We spent the night at the Four Bears Lodge, where we also ate supper and breakfast. At the end of the school day today, we drove home through the rain, making it back by 4:30 P.M. before the nasty weather began!

The population of the student body in schools on the Fort Berthold Reservation is more diverse (both ethnically and socioeconomically) than that in Dickinson's schools, so this field experience was enlightening for the education majors in many ways. It was also pretty fun because the DSU students got to teach lessons and interact with students one-to-one both days. I'm friends with the elementary school principal and the school district superintendent there, so I enjoyed getting to see them again, too. I'm exhausted, but it was a good trip.


II. Meeting with Teachers

The girls' parent/teacher conferences were yesterday, so Susan had to attend them without me; but she filled me in tonight, and the teachers seem to think that everything is going well with our daughters in their classrooms. Their report cards certainly couldn't be better. Each of the girls was tested and identified to receive instruction in the Gifted and Talented Program, so they leave their classrooms some times of the day for small-group work with the Gifted and Talented teacher--but the same Gifted and Talented teacher works with all three girls, so that meant just one additional stop last night for Susan.

The school recently administered some NWEA assessments, so our daughters' results on those tests were available, too. Their math, language, and reading skills are above their grade levels, according to NWEA. That matches what we see in the results of their Accelerated Reader tests, too (to determine at what grade level each of them is able to read). Once a teacher at our children's school has taught a Moberg, she can be sure that the administration will place future Mobergs in her classroom, too (Abigail's teacher had Suzanna last year; Hillary's teacher had Abigail two years ago). However, Susan said that the teachers were good about not comparing one daughter to another, instead talking only about the girl currently in the class and her unique strengths and areas to work on.

I must say, for as much as those kids read and tend to their homework each night, I'd have been very surprised to hear anything less flattering from the teachers.


III. Playing with Adults

There is a handbell choir at our church, and the director asked Suzanna if she'd like to join and learn to play handbells. They rehearse Wednesday nights, and tonight was Suzanna's first time with them. I asked her to tell all about it:

"I said, 'Yes!' It works out really well with my schedule because at 6:30 P.M. Wednesdays is when it starts, and that's when Hillary has church choir, so I'm there at the church anyway. Handbell choir goes from 6:30 to 7:30 P.M., but I have my own church choir from 7:00 to 7:45 P.M., so I get to play with the handbell choir for only a half-hour. However, at my first half-hour, I think I learned tons. I know which three bells are mine, and I know what the notes are for those three bells. My three bells are high B, B flat, and C. It's really fun because I'm getting to meet lots of other people, and I'm learning how to play bells at the same time. There is a middle school-aged girl and one high school-aged girl in the handbell choir, too, but the rest of the bell ringers are adults."

SEUSSICAL Pics

Today was the closing performance of Seussical at DSU, and just like last night's show, this one started late to accommodate the lineup of people extending out the door and onto the street hoping for tickets. (Meanwhile those of us who had reserved our tickets in advance and had arrived early enough to be seated before show time had to sit and wait and wait and wait . . .)

Afterward Susan snapped a few pics of the girls with their new friends in the cast. Following last night's performance, the director held a photo call (when the director has the cast pose onstage for photos from each major scene of the production), but we didn't have our camera along; so the grandmother to another child in the cast sent us a copy of her photos from last night. Here are selections from both sets of photos:

a poster outside the auditorium

the cast and crew

Here's a scene featuring the entire cast on stage with the Cat in the Hat in the center and Abigail and Suzanna amongst the Whos (in the yellow T-shirts) in Whoville to the left in this photo.

Zooming in a bit on (from left to right in this photo) the Wickersham Brothers, the Sour Kangaroo, the Cat in the Hat, assorted residents of the Jungle of Nool, Mayzie, and the Bird Girls.

Zooming in even more on Mayzie and the Bird Girls, who had nothing to do with the scenes that our daughters were in but whose costumes are fun--and the actors in the hot pink and red nylons were fun to watch!

In most of their scenes, Abigail and Suzanna played Whos in Whoville. Abigail is in the front row, the third person in from the left in this photo; and Suzanna is standing on the third step up from the bottom. (Notice the Grinch in his cave in the upper left corner of this photo.)

In the musical's plot, Whoville is on a planet so tiny that it rests easily on top of a clover. This photo is of a scene in which the life-sized characters are shaking the clover so that everybody in Whoville is struggling to stay upright!

In the musical's plot, the Whos applaud the Grinch when he annually retells the story of his long ago having tried to steal Christmas from them before finally coming to his senses. There's Abigail grinning to the right in this photo.

In the musical's plot, the mayor of Whoville and his wife send their son Jojo (who was their daughter Jojo in DSU's version) to a military academy run by General Genghis Kahn Schmitz. Playing serious young cadets are Suzanna (farthest left in this photo) and Abigail (to the right of the General).

Since Abigail got a "feature photo" in the Grinch photo, here's one of Suzanna. Notice how serious she is about military academy!

In the musical's plot, Jojo (in the yellow vest) is reunited with his (her) parents after the Cat in the Hat enlists the help of the spooky Hunches to encourage Jojo to "follow your hunch" and let it lead "you home." Suzanna is the Hunch being clutched by several big people to the left in this photo, and Abigail is the Hunch with the Cat in the Hat's arm around her. Suzanna and Abigail had a feature scene, singing with the Cat in the Hat in the first part of the scene with Jojo.

This is from the scene right after Jojo is reunited with his (her) parents. The Cat in the Hat is turning to the Hunches (Suzanna and Abigail) to high-five them and bask in the pleasure of success (getting Jojo back to his parents).

the girls with the director

the girls with the mayor of Whoville and his wife (played by a couple married in real life, too!)

the girls with the Grinch

the girls with the Cat in the Hat

For all the nights of rehearsal that Hillary attended with me or Susan (waiting for her sisters to be done), memorizing every line of every song and every movement of every scene, she could just as well have been in the play, too (but wasn't eligible to audition--only students in fourth grade or up). After the show each night, she had to go hug all the cast members, so they all knew her about as well as they did Suzanna and Abigail!

It was a great experience for us all, and I hope it leads to many more theatre productions for the girls . . . but we're glad for it to be over, too. Tonight was the first time in a long time that the girls actually got to bed on time! Now let's see how long it takes for us all to stop humming the tunes from the musical!

Saturday Miscellany

Well, the late nights and lack of sleep took their toll on Suzanna: she woke up today with a nasty case of tonsillitis. Susan took her to the doctor and got her some medicine, and we've got tentative plans for her tonsillectomy over Christmas break (per Suzanna's own request). There were two more performances of Seussical in her future (tonight and tomorrow afternoon), and the show must go on; so Suzanna steeled herself for the challenge, started her meds, and napped throughout most of the day.

En route to the doctor with Suzanna, Susan dropped off Abigail and Hillary at the riding arena on DSU's campus. A friend of the girls had invited them to join him for a trick roping class held by an expert, Felix Lopez, who was on campus this weekend for a rodeo event. So the girls donned their cowboy boots (yes, they have cowboy boots--we're in Dickinson), joined their friend and a bunch of other kids, and tried their hand at roping.

Here's the whole gang of youngsters being taught trick roping by the expert (the gentleman in the black hat, blue vest, and green shirt in the back) and his son (the boy in the red coat and black hat on the left). Can't find the Mobergs? Abigail is in a brown shirt on the left, Hillary is in a blue shirt in the front, and Suzanna is in a green coat on the right (and on her way out the door to the doctor's).

Hillary and her friend Sam, who invited the girls.

Abigail the trick roper!

Mr. Lopez's son, showing the other kids how it's done.

And where was I, you might wonder, during all this fun? On the floor in the laundry room installing the pedestals for the washer and dryer. There were supposed to have arrived weeks ago with the rest of our new appliances, but they took another week to get here, and I took yet another week to finally remove them from their boxes and read to find out what was involved in installing them. Just pick up the washer and dryer, slide the pedestals underneath, and set down the appliances on top of them? Nope. I had to disconnect both the washer and dryer, drain the washer, lay them both on their backs, bolt the pedestals to the bottoms, get the washer and dryer upright again and back into place, level them, and reconnect them. Good times. But they look snazzy, they make both appliances easier to access, and they offer convenient storage in their drawers.

My department colleagues and their families attended Seussical tonight, and beforehand we all met at Sanford's for supper together. It was a crowded table, and the Mobergs had to eat in shifts (we had to get Abigail and Suzanna fed and off to the theater before the others even arrived, but Susan, Hillary, and I waited to eat with everyone else), but it was fun to spend time with them.

The show started approximately 25 minutes late because people were lined up out the front door and onto the street outside waiting for tickets! Yes, it was sold out. Tomorrow's show is predicted to be the same, and Thursday's show had a full house, too. (Friday's wasn't completely full, but it was Halloween night, after all.) The audiences have included people of all ages: a good number of university students, lots of families with small children, parents and grandparents of the cast members, adults from the community and from the faculty and staff, etc. How nice to see the arts so well supported in this community!